The oil lamps burned dimmly in the study. The warm room was piled high with books and papers. The scent of ink and dust thick against the wooden walls. It was a room unfamiliar to any but Gloria, and perhaps one other. The furnishings were fine, but not overly so, lending the room a comforting feel. A desk rested against the railing that looked out over the common room below, ink pots, quills and sealing wax littering its surface.

The Dreamwitch sat behind the desk, watching the sleeping form of the seamstress on the couch in this rather generic study. Long legs stretched out beside the desk, obsidian talons tapping a light tune against the dark wood of the surface in front of her. The usual finery she had been seen wearing in the tavern of late was gone, replaced by her usual dream guise. A long gown of black webbing which clung tightly to her form like a shadow. A black cord hung around her neck, a single triangular stone of black onyx suspended from it. A stone familiar to two people thus far.

"Seamstress. Gloria."

Her voice was smooth and fluid, as she rose from her perch behind the desk. Moving toward the reclined form of the seamstress. The girl who lay on the couch would be almost unfamiliar to those who knew her. Her black curls were brushed and shining, pulled back from her dark features with a silver clasp, adorned with a triangle of onyx. Her form was slimmer, but more definied as a woman's body would be, wide of hip, fuller breasts and a narrow nipped waist. She wore a fine gown of deep red silk, cut to flatter such a figure without making her look immodest. Her fingers were slim, with longer clean nails, and both her hands whole, a fine matched pair of tanned flesh. Even her smile was once more whole, the missing tooth a distant memory.

"Gloria...we have so much to talk about. Come on now, Lazy bones. Let us have a walk, hmm?"

Seamstress. Gloria.The purpose first. Always the purpose first. That was a Jernoan trait, to be a task more than a person, to be a number before a name. Her eyes snapped open like they had always been that way and her fingers ached for the want of a needle and thread, as if merely stating the word seamstress destined her to adopt the tasks anew.

Dreams were such a curious thing: it was as if the reality within that dream was real, always had been real, and she had been there the whole time -- that awakening in this unknown room with this barely-known woman would be the way she stirred every day.

"I am here," she whispered, bringing high her hands, touching her fingertips to her eyes and grinding the sleepiness out of them. Her neck had a crick in it, a creaking enemy of pain somewhere in the muscles from having slept on it in such a specifically painful way. She shifted onto her elbow, peeling herself from the flat upon which she'd slept. There was something about her hands that she noticed, a uniformity, skin on both hands instead of one being wrapped in an old glove.

There was a twinge of memory somewhere in the base of her skull, as if she used to be ashamed of something -- but here, should-be and would-be didn't matter. What was truth was that her two hands were hers and that her nails snagged on the folds of her silken gown. She sought to chew on one of her nail-edges, but there was a smoothness to the tip, an evenness to the cuticle that was not familiar. Cared-for. She was to be presentable, Duquesne had said; he had asked if she wanted to know the rules of being a proper lady.

Galacia was there, speaking to her, and she raised her gaze up to meet the woman's. She clasped her hands together in front of her,like she knew to hide her heart from prying eyes. The stiffly-reclining seamstress did not blink, did not even shift her gaze away from the older woman.

In this place, Galacia was resplendent, a Glass Sun all on her own, as if the mahogany and stone in the room around them all knew to bow to her.

"A walk," the seamstress said, before kicking her feet from the flat, awakening her weary limbs. "Some people do -- do not think I am even smart enough to walk and talk at the same time. If you are one of them, I will surely prove you wrong." A smile. Wary. Careful.